Nuances: Methodology of Literary Studies 1

Paper title: Methodology for Studying Literature Course category/ code: Core Course-1 EN1CR01
MODULE 3: THE POLITICAL- CONTEXTUAL PARADIGM

• A paradigm is a way of looking at things, a set of generally shared assumptions.

• Traditional paradigm—focus on the author’s intention (focus on historical-
biographical and moral-philosophical aspects of a work.)
• Formalist paradigm—focus on literary text as an object that has independent
existence—aims at close reading of the texts minus the biographical details of the author and
socio-historical context of the work.
• Political-Contextual Paradigm—illuminate the specific material and cultural
contexts and historical influences.
➢ This approach argued against two problematic assumptions of the previous two
paradigms—1) autonomy given to the authors as inspired individuals.
2) autonomy given to literary pieces by giving them self-contained status.
➢ The practitioners of political-contextual methodology argue that literature is
influenced by social contexts and that in order to understand literature, one must
understand the social process as consisting of political power, class superiority,
dominance and ideology.
A political paradigm means the way politics is “normally” conducted.
• Politics- A broad term denoting network of exchanges and assumptions as to what is
good for humans individually and collectively.
Things cannot be understood in isolation; they have to be seen in the context of larger
structures they are part of.
• Context is the background, environment, setting, framework, or surroundings of
events or occurrences. Simply, context means circumstances forming a background of an
event, idea or statement, in such a way as to enable readers to understand the narrative or a
literary piece.
• Political-contextual paradigm—provides a critical understanding of the linkages
between social relations, political power, historical development and culturally and
contextually specific power struggles with respect to what is the ideal and ethical worldview
present in everyday discourses. The study and concern for literature form a part of these
discourses.
• Discourses— On a primary level it means written and spoken communication.
Discourse, as explained by Foucault, refers to: ways of constituting knowledge, together
with the social practices, forms of subjectivity and power relations which inhere in such
knowledges and relations between them. Discourses are more than ways of thinking and
producing meaning. In Archaeology of Knowledge (1972), he elaborates on discourse.
Foucault states that power is always present and can both produce and constrain the truth.
Discourse, according to Foucault is related to power as it operates by rules of exclusion.
Discourse therefore is controlled by objects, what can be spoken of; ritual, where and how
one may speak; and the privileged, who may speak. In his work, The Archaeology of
Knowledge, Foucault uses the example of a book to illustrate how an object becomes a “node
within a network”. A book is not made up of individual words on a page, each of which has
meaning, but rather "is caught up in a system of references to other books, other texts, other
sentences." The meaning of that book is connected to a larger, overarching web of knowledge
and ideas to which it relates.

Kavitha Gopalakrishnan, Asst.Prof., Baselius College, Kottayam

 Nuances: Methodology of Literary Studies 2
Paper title: Methodology for Studying Literature Course category/ code: Core Course-1 EN1CR01

WHAT IS LITERATURE? –--TERRY EAGLETON

• Terry Eagleton, is one of the leading Marxist cultural critic & was a student of
Raymond Williams.
• He made ideology and political context inevitable in literary analysis.
• His famous works—1) Marxism and Literary Criticism (1976)
2) Literary Theory—An Introduction (1983)
3) Holy Terror (2002)
• “What is Literature?” is the introductory chapter of Literary Theory—An
Introduction.
• It looks at the assumptions about literature that has evolved down the ages.
• Eagleton shows how study of literature form a part of everyday discourses in
which “politics” is ever present.
• If there is such a thing as literary theory, then it would seem obvious that there is
something called literature which it is the theory of.
• Eagleton thus addresses the question made necessary by the study of literary theory,
which is a system or systems for critically understanding literature. Eagleton wants to
explain the answer to the question "What is literature?" in order to fully define literary
theory.
• To answer "What is literature?" Eagleton examines several different ways of defining
literature and points out the difficulties with each of them. He does not straight arrive
on his argument and state evidence to prove his statement. Instead he examines all
the ideas proposed about Literature, all the definitions provided for the same and
finally points out his problems with them.
• He claims that because people typically define and categorize literature through
their value-judgments—which are based in social ideologies and constructs—no one
definition of literature will be the same.
• Because these value-judgments “refer in the end not simply to private taste, but to the
assumptions by which certain social groups exercise and maintain power over others,”
(14) Eagleton states that any single definition of literature is too subjective. By
offering up various definitions, analysing and finally critiquing them, Eagleton
concludes there is no objective definition of literature.
• The first definition Eagleton introduces to readers asserts literature to be fiction or
imaginary writing, but before he even begins to define literature as fiction, Eagleton
says this as a flawed claim.
✓ Even the briefest reflection on what people commonly include under the
heading of literature suggests that this will not do. Seventeenth-century
English literature includes Shakespeare, Webster, Marvell and Milton; but it
also stretches to the essays of Francis Bacon, the sermons of John Donne,
Bunyan's spiritual autobiography and whatever it was that Sir Thomas Browne
wrote. It might even encompass Hobbes's Leviathan or Clarendon's History of
the Rebellion.
✓ French seventeenth-century literature contains, along with Corneille and
Racine, La Rochefoucauld's maxims, Bossuet's funeral speeches, Boileau's

Kavitha Gopalakrishnan, Asst.Prof., Baselius College, Kottayam

 Nuances: Methodology of Literary Studies 3
Paper title: Methodology for Studying Literature Course category/ code: Core Course-1 EN1CR01
treatise on poetry, Madame Sevigne's letters to her daughter and the
philosophy of Descartes and Pascal.
✓ Nineteenth-century English literature usually includes Lamb (though not
Bentham), Macaulay (but not Marx), Mill (but not Darwin or Herbert
Spencer).
✓ Eagleton argues that as long as the public considers factual works as literature,
the claim that literature is fiction cannot hold.
✓ According to many of his examples, history has long been showing this claim
as flawed: “In the English late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the
word ‘novel’ seems to have been used about both true and fictional events…”
(1).
✓ Novels and news reports were neither clearly factual nor clearly fictional: our
sharp discriminations between these categories simply did not apply.
✓ Eagleton even cites certain books in the Bible–specifically Genesis, written
purportedly as a historical, factual document–as being today read as fact by
some and fiction by others.
✓ “Superman comics” are fiction but not regarded as literature. We can therefore
understand that the claim that literature refers to “imaginative writing” isn’t
true always.
✓ Eagleton shows the flaws of this definition of literature to not only refute the
claim that literature is fiction, but also to find the distinction between factual
and fictional writing. What one may read as factual, another may read as
fictional, and Eagleton claims that just because one may read a work as factual
does not mean it should not be categorized as literature.
• After exposing the holes in the definition of literature as fiction, Eagleton moves to
his second definition: literature as defined by Russian Formalism. He claims that if
literature is not defined as “imaginative” or “fictional” writing, it could refer to a
certain “peculiar” use of language and one can still claim the estrangement of
writing, in particular the estrangement of language, to be something that “transforms
and intensifies ordinary language, deviates systematically from everyday speech” (2).
This view according to Eagleton is the formalistic view of literature.
• It is with this definition that Eagleton links literature to Russian Formalism.
Russian Formalist Roman Jakobson says that literature is a kind of writing in which
“organised violence is committed on ordinary speech”. He explains that instead of
focusing on the meaning of a text, Formalists (whom Eagleton describes as “a
militant, polemical group of critics”) focused on the structure, the language, of the
text” (2).
• Instead of the content of the work influencing the definition of literature, the
language and structure of a text defines literature. The formalists only regarded
literature as a “particular organization of language”. Formalism according to Eagleton
was only “the application of linguistics to the study of literature”. Content was
therefore secondary, not to say unnecessary, to the formalists.
• There are several different ways the Formalists saw how the language, the structure,
and the form shape a text, and in turn how the language, structure, and form of a text
determines if the text will be defined as literature or not.

Kavitha Gopalakrishnan, Asst.Prof., Baselius College, Kottayam

 Nuances: Methodology of Literary Studies 4
Paper title: Methodology for Studying Literature Course category/ code: Core Course-1 EN1CR01
• Some of the devices that shaped a text into a piece of literature and included: “sound,
imagery, rhythm, syntax, metre, rhyme, narrative techniques…and what all of these
elements had in common was their ‘estranging’ or ‘defamiliarizing’” (3) quality.
✓ In this way, how the literary devices the Formalists identified used in a text
makes that text literature.
✓ Eagleton states that the Formalists would not claim the type of language
people use in everyday language should be considered literature because it
does not go against the norm, it is not estranging. An example of this literary
language that challenges readers is illustrated in the poetry by Gerard Manley
Hopkins. Eagleton claims Hopkin’s use of estranging language forces readers
to pay attention to the words and their meanings.
✓ Furthermore, the Formalists defined this estranging “literary language as a set
of deviations from a norm, a kind of linguistic violence” that differs from the
type of language people use in everyday conversation (4). However, in order
to differentiate between the two different types of language, the Formalists had
to define what every day, normal, language consisted of.
✓ He argues that to claim that literature is a “special kind of language”
presupposes the existence of a “normal” or “ordinary” language; while,
according to Eagleton, the view that there is such thing as a “normal” language
“shared equally among all members of society is an illusion”.
✓ Eagleton, though, claims the Formalist’s realized there is no “normal”
language, and that “any actual language consists of a highly complex range of
discourses, differentiated according to class, region, gender, status and so on,
which can by no means be neatly unified into a single homogeneous linguistic
community” (4).
✓ Eagleton states the language some might consider ‘ordinary’, others may find
complex, which challenges the claim that literature is defined through
estrangement. What is to be said about language that is estranging for some,
but not others? Eagleton concludes that any kind of writing can be considered
estranging.
✓ In sum, the formalistic view of literature, or “literariness”, was in relation to
the “differential” relations between one sort of discourse and another; which is
in itself not an inherent property.
• With this assertion that the Formalist’s definition of literature is flawed, Eagleton
suggests another definition for literature which claims that maybe literature could be
defined as non-pragmatic discourse “(u)nlike biology textbooks and notes to the
milkman it serves no immediate practical purpose, but is to be taken as referring to a
general state of affairs” (7).
✓ The problem with this particular view, Eagleton states, is that the way a text is
written/said holds more priority than what the text actually says/discusses.
Eagleton calls this type of literature “self-referential language,” which in his
words is language that makes reference to itself (7). That is if we decide to
treat literature “non-pragmatically”, we can forget about any objective
definition of literature, because as advocated by Eagleton, in claiming that, we

Kavitha Gopalakrishnan, Asst.Prof., Baselius College, Kottayam

 Nuances: Methodology of Literary Studies 5
Paper title: Methodology for Studying Literature Course category/ code: Core Course-1 EN1CR01
are also leaving the definition of literature to “how somebody decides to read”
it, not to the inherent “nature of what is written”.
✓ This definition of literature, though, Eagleton explains, deprives readers of the
topics written about. In one example, Eagleton states: “It would probably
come as a surprise to George Orwell to hear that his essays were to be read as
though the topics, he discussed were less important than the way he discussed
them” (7).
✓ Unfortunately, this definition emphasizes the author’s style of writer, rather
than what the writer expresses through his or her writing. Eagleton claims this
definition is weak because it leaves too much room for interpretation. When
one reads a text, she brings her background to the text. Her particular way of
relating to the text is different than someone else’s way of relating to the text.
Eagleton argues that “by applying certain conventions of reading to its [a
text’s] words, he [the reader] prises them loose from their immediate context
and generalizes them beyond their pragmatic purpose to something of wider
and probably deeper import” (6). And because anyone can–and inevitably
will- bring their own interpretation to a text, any text could be seen as non-
pragmatic. Eagleton concludes that if any text can be read as non-pragmatic
discourse, any text could be considered literature, and “that literature cannot in
fact by ‘objectively’ defined” (7).
✓ Eagleton claims that it would be almost impossible to read literature as non-
pragmatic because any text could be read in this way. He argues that if we
look at literature in this sense, it allows too much room for subjective
interpretation because “it leaves the definition of literature up to how
somebody decides to read, not to the nature of what is written” (7). Eagleton
continues in his discussion and adds that any piece of writing can be read
“non- pragmatically”, as any text can be read “poetically”. Therefore,
literature cannot be judged as being simply a discourse that must be read “non-
pragmatically”. Eagleton would argue that even the texts that are
“informational” and “practical” could be read as “non-pragmatic”, especially
depending on how the students interpret the texts. This decision, though, of
what is practical and impractical relates back to Eagleton’s main argument that
the interpretation of literature is closely linked to social constructs and value-
judgments.
• Value-judgements have a lot to do with how we tend to see something as literature or
not. This leads Eagleton to claim that there is absolutely no objective definition of
“literature”. That there is no such writing that is immutably literary.
• Eagleton’s next definition calls literature as any text which holds value, as “any kind
of writing which for some reason or another somebody values highly” (8).
✓ The implication with this definition, Eagleton claims, is ‘what is value’? He
explains that the texts one may rate highly would be considered literature;
however, what would become of the texts one does not value? Are these texts
not considered literature because one does not like it or consider it valuable?
✓ Eagleton resolves that with this definition, “we can drop once and for all the
illusion that the category ‘literature’ is ‘objective,’ in the sense of being

Kavitha Gopalakrishnan, Asst.Prof., Baselius College, Kottayam

 Nuances: Methodology of Literary Studies 6
Paper title: Methodology for Studying Literature Course category/ code: Core Course-1 EN1CR01
eternally given and immutable. Anything can be literature, and anything which
is regarded as unalterably and unquestionably literature” (9).
✓ Basically, with this given definition, any text could potentially be considered
literature.
✓ Literature, as a definitive category, is unstable.
✓ Since literature has a lot to do with value-judgements, and since values refers
to “whatever is valued by certain people in specific situations, according to
particular criteria and in the light of given purposes”, the crucial point
suggested by Eagleton is that “all literary works… are “rewritten” if only
unconsciously by the societies which read them; indeed there is no reading of
work which is not also a “re- writing”. This is indeed a very significant point
made by Eagleton, we can understand that no piece of “literature” can be
unfolded to a group of people without being changed; and this is exactly why
“literature‟ remains an „unstable affair”.
• Not only is literature linked to one’s perception of value, but in Eagleton’s last
attempt at trying to define literature, he links literature to one’s ideology.
• Eagleton defines ideology as “the modes of feeling, valuing, perceiving, and
believing which have some kind of relation to the maintenance and reproduction
of social power” (13). Eagleton claims that one’s ideology is constantly influencing
how she reads and interprets a text. His example pulls from a study–Practical
Criticism (1929)–that shows the impact one’s ideologies have on one’s
interpretations of texts. In this study, undergraduates were given poems, and were
asked to evaluate them without knowing the titles or the names of the authors. He
shares that “one is struck by the habits of perception and interpretation which they
[the students in the study] spontaneously share–what they expect literature to be, what
assumptions they bring to the poem and what fulfillments they anticipate they will
derive from it” (13).
✓ Eagleton claims it is nearly impossible to not bring one’s ideologies to reading
a text, making the definition of literature too subjective. Everyone’s ideologies
will differ; therefore, their interpretations of literature will differ.
✓ Moreover, the informational texts—not deemed as literature–might start
constituting as literature, or the texts now categorized as literature might start
being read as practical.
• After attempting to define literature, Eagleton concludes his introduction claiming
literature is too subjective to define. He states that because value-judgments will
never be considered objective–especially due to the fact they are closely linked to
one’s ideologies–literature as a definitive category, will never be seen as objective.
• Literature is something that a particular group relates to for some reason and values it.
What could be the possible reasons? Practicality/usefulness is not the reason because
otherwise, Mill and Bentham would also be included in literature. The reasons change
from time to time based on the values and concerns of that period. For example,
Matthew Arnold emphasized on serious literature and Eliot did not regard
Wordsworth as worthy of reading and brought in John Donne who until then was
never considered.
• So, we can safely conclude with the help of the last paragraph of his essay that the
preferences of people who are in a capacity to decide what constitutes literature are
Kavitha Gopalakrishnan, Asst.Prof., Baselius College, Kottayam
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Paper title: Methodology for Studying Literature Course category/ code: Core Course-1 EN1CR01
shaped by larger structures and value systems, those of class and other categories. We
can also replace the larger preferences which can be classified into categories as
ideology.
• Eagleton concludes saying that these ideologies are worked out to maintain power
over others.
• Put more crudely, one can say that the social groups in power wants us to consider
certain piece of writings as “literature” and others as not. This can only push us to
think that by reading what a certain society considers as “literature” we may
understand a lot, about this given society. We also understand that for “literature” to
be under so much invisible schemes, then it may only have a very crucial impact on
the reproduction of social inequalities and power relations

References
Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory: An Introduction. Minneapolis: The University of
Minnesota, 1996. 1-14. Print.
Summary and Evaluation of Terry Eagleton’s “What is Literature?”
https://portfolio.snc.edu/katherine_summers/presentation-portfolio/essay1/

Disclaimer:
This material has been compiled from various sources for classroom reading and study
and does not intend to violate any Copyright, Design and Patent Act.

Kavitha Gopalakrishnan, Asst.Prof., Baselius College, Kottayam

 Nuances: Methodology of Literary Studies 8
Paper title: Methodology for Studying Literature Course category/ code: Core Course-1 EN1CR01

Part B: “Kunti and Nishadin” – Mahasweta Devi

• After Kurukshetra is Anjum Katyal’s English translations of Mahasweta Devi’s

interpretation of the war of Kurukshetra where she attempts to reveal those aspects of
the war between Pandavas and Kauravas that have always been viewed as redundant.
• After Kurukshetra is a historic reflection of The Mahabharata where the rajavritta/
“elite” and janavritta/ “other”, confront; where the epic turns the veils of the hidden
truth which spotlights the subaltern women who are from the fringes of society but no
less than the vanquishers of the epic. Being insignificant, they remain isolated and
abandoned the whole lives even anonymous in the great epic but their prolonged
silence is an incongruous critic to the royal dynasty as well as the established social
customs.
• Mahabharata is an ancient Sanskrit epic that forms an important part of Hindu
mythology. The war of Kurukshetra “dharmayudha” is the highlight of this epic but
Devi concentrates primarily on the aftermath of this battle. She straddles two trends in
epic appropriation, that is, a) realistic representation of the epic and b) thematically
inspired original tales.
• The anthology comprises three stories, namely “Five Women,” “Kunti and the
Nishadin,” and “Souvali.”
• Banibrata Mahanta says that After Kurukshetra is primarily in the context of
subalternization of Indian (Hindu) women.
• The text comprises of three short stories which are based on subaltern women’s
perspective of the supposed war for ‘justice’ that has been declared by the
royals.
• The subaltern women are doubly marginalized as two forces make them suppressed;
the androcentric, patriarchal society and the gynocentric exclusively elite women
of the societal hierarchy. The dharma-yudhha of Kurukshetra failed to remember
the dharma of humankind.
• The narrative focusses on characters that exemplify the twin problems of caste and
gender.
• A study of the stories highlights that the lives of the tribal women (lokavritta) as well
as women belonging to the royal family (rajavritta) are linked with each other as
almost all have lost their husbands to the war. The royal widows lament over the loss
of their husbands and the luxurious lifestyle that came along with it. They foresee a
bleak future ordained for them filled with religious fasting and rituals. The tribal
women, on the other hand, believe that disaster and destruction are just temporary
barriers in the way of living a joyous, meaningful and complete life.
• These stories reveal the bigotry of the royal men and women who talk about piety,
righteousness and dharma and the qualities that can help one attain “moksha” but treat
anyone below them like dirt.
• Slavoj Žižek states that the class-driven societies do not experience the hierarchy of
social groups within the same nation. The dominant class constructs a separate
universe, and within its “ideological imaginary…the lower class surrounding [their]
world does not exist” (First as Tragedy 5).

Kavitha Gopalakrishnan, Asst.Prof., Baselius College, Kottayam

 Nuances: Methodology of Literary Studies 9
Paper title: Methodology for Studying Literature Course category/ code: Core Course-1 EN1CR01
• The ideological imaginary thus becomes both the consequence and the manifestation
of the dominant subjectivity. It is created as a reaction to the intrusion of the
subaltern. In other words, the “ideological imaginary” is a space where subaltern
consciousness has no meaning. And this deliberate obliteration of the subaltern’s
psyche becomes an act of power for the dominant subjectivity.
• The “ideological imaginary” is a violent construct based on the concepts of power and
repression. It is manifestation of the violence caused by social constructs of caste and
class. Both men and women take an active part in its construction.
• Kunti is one of the most revered characters of Hindu mythology whose virtues of
intelligence, devotedness and kindness, and her teachings about concepts like
selflessness, spirituality, truthfulness, etc. are extolled by the followers of Hinduism.
• Mahesweta Devi has presented the character of Kunti in a different light. In fact,
Devi’s delineation of Kunti highlights the role of “high caste and class women in
subjugating their lower caste and class counterparts” (Mahanta 30).
Story:
• An old, haggard, and world-weary Kunti has retreated into the forest with the blind
king Dhritarashtra, and his voluntarily blind wife Gandhari to await their death.
• After relieving her duties as a queen, Kunti is has turned introspective in her old age.
Now she bemoans aloud that she has never been able to discover her true self among
the many roles that were thrust upon her from young age.
• She envies Gandhari who, by willingly accepting blindness, has done her rightful duty
of conforming to the path followed by her husband.
• In retrospect, Gandhari’s self-imposed blindness is a way to absolve herself from all
the wrong-doings around her. Gandhari’s deliberate sensory deprivation is indeed her
silent consent of the destruction wrought by her sons and nephews.
• Kunti feels that Gandhari rage towards Krishna is due to her “pure,” “innocent,” and
truthful nature (After Kurukshetra ).
• Gandhari is, however, an individual who turns a blind eye to her own as well as others
destruction because for she lacks the courage to challenge violence. Such an
individual prefers to suffer silently and be a mute spectator to acts of violence.
• Gandhari can also be labelled a nihilist. Her self-imposed blindness is a nihilistic act.
Her conscious acceptance of the blindfold reinforces her conscience’s negation of the
violence around her.
• Kunti yearns to “purge” and “cleanse” her soul before her demise . But there is no one
present in the forest to listen to her confession, except a group of nishads.
• Nishads are the subaltern, the ‘uncivilized’ tribe that resides away from the urban
places. They are considered to be the most marginalized sect of the society.
• Initially, Kunti ignores the proximity of the nishads, an easy task for she has been
performing it since her youth. But her need to confess wins over her aversion to
interact with the tribal people.
• Moreover, she concedes that it will be beneficial for her because these low- caste
people won’t understand the language of a royal.
• The nishads are, in Kunti’s view, as dumb and unresponsive as the nearby trees, birds,
animals, and the scenery in front of her. Yet under the silent scrutiny of a few

Kavitha Gopalakrishnan, Asst.Prof., Baselius College, Kottayam

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nishadins, Kunti gives vent to her feelings of guilt over never acknowledging her
first-born son, Karna.
• In her view, she has committed a heinous sin in giving up the right to raise her son.
Years later she commands him to join the Pandavas as she wants her legitimate sons
to win the war.
• When Karna dies in the battle she cannot even mourn for him, for it might hurt her
pristine image.
• Kunti also feels burdened with the truth about the birth of her five elder sons,
namely Yudhishtira, Bhima and Arjuna, Nakula and Sahdeva. None of them has been
sired by a Pandu.
• During her confession, Kunti notices the pitying gaze of an elderly nishadin and flees
from the place.
• The next day, however, Kunti notices the tribal community fleeing the forest. She is
approached by the elderly nishadin from the previous day.
• A feeling of fear assails her due the “dark-skinned lady standing so close to her”.
Kunti is extremely astonished when the nishadin raises questions about her confession
in the language spoken by the Rajavittra.
• The elderly nishadin criticizes Kunti over her deceit in making an incomplete
confession.
• Kunti is, in fact, yet to reveal her greatest sin.
• The encounter between the Kshatriya queen and the untouchable Nishadin in “Kunti
and the Nishadin,” is thus an ethical confrontation. When Kunti, the great queen
royal dynasty and proud mother of brave Pandavas confronts the old Nishadin
woman, she is wrecked as she is reminded “her greatest crime.”
• The tribal woman brings to Kunti’s notice her cruel act of sacrifice of a nishadin and
her five sons to foil Duryodhna’s plan.
• The Nishadin is a long-grieving mother, who lost her five children in the fire at
Varnavrat, where they died in order that Kunti and the Pandavas could live, considers
Kunti as “sinner” because “to sacrifice or harm innocents in one’s own self-interest is
the most unpardonable sin” and Kunti is guilty.
• The Nishadin’s final judgment splinters Kunti since customary atonement cannot
berate her sins, “You couldn’t even remember this sin. Causing six innocent forest
tribals to be burnt to death to serve your own interests. In our eyes, by the laws of
Mother Nature, you, your sons, your allies, are all held guilty.”
• The pious and upstanding queen of Rajavittra is, in fact, the instigator of violent
deaths of six people.
• Her violent transgression is made worse by the absence of any sense of guilt or even
the recollection of her crime.
• Friedrich Nietzsche defines forgetfulness as a “force or the active capability to
repress. . . [without it] there would be no happiness, no cheerfulness, no hoping, no
pride, no present” (On the Genealogy of Morals 42).
• For Kunti, however, the subaltern is not a repressed entity rather it does not exist. The
violated subaltern is, in fact, insignificant to her psyche.
• Kunti – despite her ideals, conscience, and introspection – turns out to be the most
misled individual among the three royals in the forest.

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• Between the blind-at-birth Dhritarashtra, and the voluntarily blind Gandhari, Kunti
proves to be the most blind. She constantly preaches about ethics even though most
of her decisions are motivated by selfish reasons.
• Kunti inability to remember or regret her culpability in the murder of the six nishads
points to the inherent prejudice of upper caste and class. For them, the subalterns are
not marginalized; they simply do not exist as a human entity.
• Mahasweta Devi’s obvious intention is to underscore the contrast between the
Rajavritta, in which one becomes “cunning and treacherous”, and the Lokavritta, in
which one “honours and celebrates life.”
• But a divine retribution for the sins of the past is planned and a natural forest fire is
waiting to take place and it will scorch the earth and burn alive the three royals.
• There is a heart touching description of the mass death in the story “…at
Yudhisthira’s orders, burned on mass pyres organized by Vidura. The air was thick
with the stench of burning flesh. To cover the stink of putrefaction; ghee and camphor
were poured onto the flames. But the fumes of death may not be so easily hid.” (32)

References
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ffca/274d0445d23e7f0338c5e0421b0a3f451af3.pdf

Kavitha Gopalakrishnan, Asst.Prof., Baselius College, Kottayam